On Aug. 4, GoAhead Software became the first software member of the Service Availability Forum (SA Forum) to announce middleware with support for the APIs comprising the SA Forum's Hardware Platform Interface. GoAhead expects to deliver a beta version of its SelfReliant high availability middleware with SA Forum compliance in September, 2003, with commercial… ship date projected in Q4 of 2003.

SelfReliant runs as a middleware layer on top of the operating system to manage redundant components with the goal of five nines (99.999%) availability and reliability. According to GoAhead, SelfReliant features 2-3 millisecond failover speeds, checkpointing to preserve application data, and distributed message delivery greater than 38,000 per second.

The SA Forum grew out of the need for telecommunications carriers to move away from proprietary, in-house systems to open, standards-compliant commodity hardware and software platforms. The SA Forum coordinates closely with the Carrier Grade Linux working group sponsored by the Open Source Development Lab (ODSL).

“HA middleware is a key building block in carrier-grade infrastructure equipment. GoAhead's delivery to the market of compliant middleware will enable network equipment providers, and ultimately service providers, to realize the cost savings of open platforms without being locked into a proprietary solution,” said Timo Jokiaho, president of the SA Forum.

Compliance with the SA Forum's HPI delivers several business benefits to network equipment providers (NEPs), according to GoAhead, including:

1. Isolates applications from change of the underlying platform (hardware, OS, etc.)
2. Improves time to market with pre-integrated off-the-shelf building blocks for hardware, cpu, operating system, middleware, database, and stacks
3. Allows NEPs to move from proprietary development to a focus on differentiating their applications
4. Lowers development costs by providing a selection of vendors with proven products
5. Reduces risks associated with proprietary hardware and software development

“GoAhead's implementation of the SA Forum's HPI is a significant step to building out the range of vendors supplying modular computing components for carrier-grade equipment,” said Ton Steenman, general manager of the Embedded Intel Architecture division. “Commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) elements that are based on open standards will return economic benefits to suppliers and buyers of highly reliable systems.”

 
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